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by tsumego



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Banana the Cat, Developing Relationship, Friends to Lovers, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, excessive internal monologuing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-07-20 07:34:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16132625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tsumego/pseuds/tsumego
Summary: Mike isn’t someone Nicky wants to move on from, or to move on from him. But free agency is here and everyone knows that Mike isn't staying in Washington.





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**Author's Note:**

  * For [sunshinexbomb](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunshinexbomb/gifts).



> Sunshinexbomb - hope you enjoy this, I rather liberally interpreted your prompts and ran with them. 
> 
> Thank you to my beta HotCrosBuns for their infinite patience and support & everyone who supported me through writing this.

_They say that your heart is the size of your fist_  
_It takes your whole life just to teach it two tricks: It beats and it attacks_  
_And in between is all of love, and loss, attraction_  
_You live your life between contractions_  
**-Half of You, Dessa**

In another life maybe they figure their shit out any time in the eight whole years together on same team, sharing hotel rooms and beers and clothing and secrets. In this one, they did not.

In Nicky’s defense, he didn’t realize that both of them together might be one of those things which are possible no matter how it might feel like an idle fantasy. Daydreams pass the time on plane rides while out the window clouds and fields pass below the plane’s wing in the sunshine. What would it be like to have been born Canadian, to play hockey a hundred years in the future, to touch a unicorn horn, to kiss Mike Green? Nothing to work for, nothing to win. Just a passing thought.

In this life, it took nothing less than standing at the precipice of the end. Looking into the onrushing void of free agency and knowing that Mike is moving on from the Washington Capitals to some as-yet-unknown team somewhere. It’s just hockey, it’s just business. No space for sentiment between cap space and statistics and declining ice time. The right friendships can survive trades, but there is an inevitable loss of closeness. On teams, you’re practically standing on top of each other day and night. You don’t learn how to reach out. If all you are is shared experience, friendship stretches thin and fades to the background until you meet again. And it’s fine and right and good - there are only so many intimate connections one person can sustain, and Nicky's limit is lower than most. He can barely remember to keep up with his brother and there’s only one of him.

Nicky had not anticipated the keenness of the ache at the thought of Mike drifting to become one of those distant friends of convenience. He had felt as if he were the one losing his home. As the days had passed, he’d lurked around Mike in the name of solidarity, tried to be a calm distraction from the anxiety Mike had vibrated with, the uncertainty winding him tighter and tighter like an unreleased bowstring. Even if Mike had been calm, he’d have been there anyway to clutch at their last moments in this place.

They hadn’t done anything worth mentioning, neither able to focus on anything for long and nothing concrete, shifting from ball hockey to Xbox to flicking beer coasters at each other. Nicky had been so wrapped up in his fatalistic anticipatory misery, he’d been blindsided by Mike making a move.

“I’m leaving the Capitals, but I don’t have to be leaving you too, Nicky. Not if you don’t want me to.” Mike had said, eyes direct and fingers light on the back of Nicky’s hand. Only Mike hadn’t been content to stay silent, to leave the unknown possibility withering unsaid in the space between the two of them. They made a good partnership that way. Mike tried for everything that he wanted and he knocked Nicky out of his stasis and pulled him along - whether it was the backstage at concerts or to the new Swedish bakery that’s a hike into the city or whatever new treat Mike had happened upon. 

The look on Mike’s face had been one of patient, determined hope. He’d probably imagined immediate, impassioned declarations like a reality TV show, but Mike had offered knowing Nicky. Nicky doesn’t slip into relationships easily, doesn’t fall into bed with people and hope for the best. He can never look at the start without thinking ahead to the future and the finish, but here they were at the finish and all he could think was ‘Please, not yet.’ That must have been the thought that let him give in to the impulse, grab Mike’s hand, let Mike lean into him, promise them a future.

It’s the worst possible time to start a relationship. It’s the best possible time. It’s the only time they have.

The negotiations pick up now that free agency is truly open and Mike doesn’t have much time that is truly free, driving into the city for meetings and fielding texts from his agent at odd hours. Nicky stays out of it. Between the travel and the competition and the time zones he doesn’t even know which city he would want Mike to go to. Washington isn’t an option and Mike is the one leaving. The irrational whisper of a too-recent sting of another playoffs loss says “anywhere but the Rangers, I want to hate them freely a little longer”, but what is one season of loss compared to four, five, six years living in a city? Nicky will get over it if he has to.

Mostly Nicky spends his time at what is still Mike’s house. Now that they’re… dating? Going out? ...together, not much changes on the surface. Nicky feels less like he’s dying by inches, Mike looks less hunted. Now when Mike gets off the phone instead of flopping on the couch he slides to the floor to lean his head against Nicky’s leg, turning his face into Nicky’s calf to grumble out his frustrations into the fabric of Nicky’s sweatpants, arm hooked around to hold himself steady. Now with him close, Nicky can reach down and run his fingers through Mike’s hair, ruffle it up and pet it flat, lean down to kiss Mike’s forehead and thumb away stress lines wrinkling his forehead, the precursors to a certain headache.

Lying together in the evenings is when they talk. Nicky likes back-to-back, like they’re back to being roadroomates, whispering vulnerabilities and confessions into the darkness of the room, but lying together, cheek resting on Mike’s chest, drawing absent-minded patterns with his fingers, eyes safely hidden is nice as well. He can feel the beat of Mike’s heart, less a sound than a sensation.

They talk about the future, immediate and long-term. They’re both background sort of guys at heart. No desire to come out, elbow their way to the front of the crowd, plant their feet and bare their hearts to the world’s judgement. Mike doesn’t want that to be the first thing his new team learns about him. Even just thinking about other people speculating about their relationship, asking him questions and being politely interested makes Nicky want to curl up and die. He won’t pull out his insides for the media and fans to examine, won’t put a target on Mike’s back. He owes the city a cup and he’ll get it for them come hell or high water, but he doesn’t owe the city his heart.

They decide not to spend the summer together - Nicky’s already stayed much later than he normally does. Mike smiles at him with soft eyes when they talk about it. They both know it’s only for Mike that he’s stayed this long.

“You need to send me actual pictures now. Not weird profiles in the dark or just a close-up of your teeth or whatever creepy thing you’ve decided is funny now, you weirdo.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, I send perfectly good photos,” Nicky says with his straightest face. Nicky will do exactly what he wants and he definitely will still be sending Mike things that make him send a jumble of letters and angry faces back, because he has to find his joy over the long cupless summer somehow, “But you have to send pictures to me too, and ones of what you’re doing, not just 500 pictures of Banana, your motorcycles, and Banana on your motorcycles.”

“You are the kind of man who needs more cat pictures in your life, Nicky. I am only trying to give you what you need,” Mike returns, completely too warm with affection to be called a chirp.

Banana is a perfectly nice cat who looks largely unimpressed in every deeply-similar picture Mike sends with captions like “So cute, she fell asleep!” and “Extra grumpy today - like you :D” Every time, Nicky finds himself smiling at Mike’s blatant and unrestrained adoration of that cat more than any humor in the text.

It’s funny, falling into a relationship with his best friend. Nicky has loved before - Ana and Ash and Kevin and Brittany - but there was an anxiousness to it too. Who are you? How do we fit together? Trying to flirt and be charming, showing your best side without showing your soft underbelly, keeping an eye out for red flags. Even in that first flush where everything they did seemed perfect, there was still effort to try to reach out, learn and connect with a new person, entirely unknown.

Nicky is currently in the process of cutting out all the stupidest pictures he can find of their (his? ugh.) teammates and taping them to the bottom of all of Mike’s skateboards. He knows to be careful to use tape that won’t damage the art there, because Mike genuinely loves each board and cares more about the art he has on them than any of the five dollar art prints on the walls of his home. He also knows that Mike will probably call him up wheezing laughter so hard he can’t get words out halfway through the summer when he finally notices Nicky’s improvements.

What changed wasn’t who they were to each other, no new mysteries were created between them - what changed was their commitment to a future together. No longer depending on the grace of the men in suits to tell them “you are a team” but each of them picking the other as a untradable teammate. Actively choosing to work together towards a mutual future, one in that in the coming weeks, months, years can withstand whatever life throws at them and keep on having each other’s backs.

Maybe it’s that thinking that drives Nicky’s reaction to Mike’s call later that week.

“Detroit has lots of Swedes.” is probably not the reaction Mike is expecting to his excited announcement that he’s just signed 3 years for 18 million. It’s all Nicky can think to say. It doesn’t feel real. It probably won’t until they face each other on the ice, and maybe not even then. But now things are set. They’ll be in the same timezone but different conferences. Detroit isn’t in Metro so there will be no first or second round knockouts. Mike will soon be busy buying a house and moving his things and meeting his new teammates. Signing also means it’s time to go their separate ways for the summer.

It’s far too soon to bring Mike back home for the summer, but Nicky wants him there anyways. He misses his home and family, but he’ll miss Mike being in his arms too. Next year they can talk about it. The part of him that looks quietly on the ice, follows possibilities thinks: a summer apart with their relationship is good practice for their first season apart and first season in a relationship together. Summer training is not so hectic, not so many emotions. And if it doesn’t work (it might not, there’s always the possibility, nothing is guaranteed in life) better to find out early and lick his wounds in the warm months where people give him space and don’t try to get him drunk and pry into his business every time he looks a little sad.

They make the most of the time they have left. Mike drags him to all their old haunts, even makes him go with him to a few of the DC landmarks Nicky refuses to tour with visiting friends and take selfies there like they haven’t been there a million times before. Mike looks lighter than he has in months, his future set and relaxed in the happy glow of enjoying the moment of a new relationship. Despite everything, Nicky has fun and even steals a few kisses behind a column at the Lincoln Memorial.

It’s funny how things sneak up on you. There is a difference between knowing that he’s flying out soon in the vague sense that he bought the tickets with tomorrow’s date was on them and the immediate necessity of preparing to leave. The act of packing his bags and making sure the house is ready to stand empty for months feel wrong and alarming, like he’s been surprised with an unexpected trip. As he sorts shirts and pants into piles, Nicky finds himself staring at Mike, trying to fix bits of him into his memory. It’s only Detroit, Mike isn’t dying or being shipped to Mars. But for all he’ll see him, all the small moments of turning to see him at the breakfast bar or on the bench it feels like he might as well be moving to Mars or the Moon - he’s not even going to be in a different time zone.

Once the last of his luggage is packed into the rental he’s using to get to the airport, Nicky shuts the trunk and sees Mike hovering on his front stoop. Nicky is the one leaving Mike this time, but just for now. Nicky stands where his is, awkward and not sure what to do, arms useless and hanging by his sides. This is the end of their time together in this transitional space in between, off the books and in a state of flux. He manages to force out Mike’s name, barely louder than a weird croaky whisper.

Seconds later they’re hugging, arms clasped so tight that Nicky could blame the breathless feeling he has on them. He feels everything - sadness, fear, uncertainty, loss, loneliness - so intensely it chokes him, brought to the fore by this one moment. He tucks his head and hides his face against Mike’s neck, feels wetness of near-tears gather in his lashes and hates his body for its betrayal. Mike must realize, might be in a similar state, because his hands start stroking Nicky’s back in silent, supportive comfort.

They stand there embraced for long moments until Mike starts snickering, “I’m sorry, Nicky. I just…I looked down and we’re fucking standing on your dumb driveway art. We’re being all Lifetime movie standing on this stupid painting of a hockey stick.”

It breaks the moment but in a good way, one that lets Nicky tuck all his big unwieldy emotions back into his chest. Mike is good at that, making Nicky smile when he needs it the most. The smile helps him step back and punch Mike in the arm, gives him the strength to get in his car and drive off to the airport.

It’s going to be a long flight and a long wait. If it’s possible to pine for someone who you’re dating, who loves you and you love in return, then Nicky is pining, he thinks. But it’s a sweet ache, one that Nicky is happy to bear. His life is better with Mike in it, and that’s something he’s known since the moment he walked off a plane into the Capitals training camp his first year.

Maybe in another life they kissed as rookies, felt their shared attraction and acted on it, and built a life together. In this one, they did not, and perhaps that feels kind of stupid in retrospect, like a missed opportunity. But maybe not. Maybe in another world it all came crashing down. Maybe this, here is the best of all possible worlds for them. There’s no way to know and nothing to do but live this one to its conclusion. After all, it’s a pretty good life they’ve built here. Nicky is playing the sport he loves on a team who loves him and has a close-up of Mike’s face squished against Banana’s fur with the caption “have a nice flight, banana misses u!!” saved to his phone for the plane ride.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me at [tsumeghost](https://tsumeghost.tumblr.com/) on tumblr, where I give fic recs, post chat fic & reblog hockey memes (mostly memes tbh).


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